The Polka Dot Bitcoins: The FBI needs the key

The FBI closed in September the website Silk Road, the biggest market for narcotics, weapons and other stuff on the web, seizing bitcoins belonging to the operator. Thus was that creditor a sum of between 144 and 30 thousand bitcoins, the largest accumulation of “criptomonedas” known in the world was made.

It is estimated that, by now, some 12 million bitcoines are outstanding, of which 28.9% is owned by around 47 individuals, and the other 21.5% is owned by 880 people.

Overall, fewer than 250,000 people are possessing bitcoines: there are 246,377 ‘bags’ of bitcoines, but some users have more than one ‘bag’, as the operator of the web page with statistics bitcoines, Andrew Rennhack quoted by the magazine ‘Wired’.

However, a detail tarnishes all achievement: the strength of the FBI are holding the key used to move and use, thus rendering it useless bagging.

Faced with this scenario some possibilities that the FBI is analyzing open. On the one hand, they could try to negotiate some sort of reduced penalties for the owner of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, today arrested by the shady practices that were held in place (sale of drugs and guns, hiring hitmen, etc) .

If the negotiations succeed, Ulbricht could get some kind of agreement in exchange for the keys.

Another option for U.S. Bureau would attempt to decrypt the coin, it seems a daunting task in view of the high levels of computer security that has shown to have the bitcoin (in fact, it is one of the reasons you listed as high ).

Meanwhile, these attempts could come to play members and corporations around the world interested in the precious booty, for now, has no business beyond the FBI has the information of identifying the coins confiscated.

If not get it (the FBI and private) could even lead to immobility of those bitcoins increased price criptomoneda, in view of that requisitioned by the FBI represents a good deal within the already limited amount of bitcoins available.

Anyway, for now this last possibility seems quite remote. Bitcoin virtual currency on Wednesday lost nearly 50% of its trading yesterday, a minikrach caused by additional restrictive measures in China, where the main exchange platform from now rejects new deposits. BTC In China, world trading platform of electronic currency, the price of bitcoin dropped to 2,100 yuan (U.S. $ 340), down 46% from its highest level in the last 24 hours.

A warning hung yesterday on the website of China BTC stated that “due to new government regulations, (the platform) to suspend deposits CNY (yuan)” that users could do in their electronic portfolios.

The Chinese reaction was swift speculators, leading to the collapse of the price of virtual currency in a few hours. China is the world market for bitcoin.

The bitcoin was invented in 2009 after the financial crisis by an anonymous computer that wanted to create a currency that did not depend on any central bank or financial institution.

This criptomoneda issued from complex computer codes can be stored in digital portfolios and traded on electronic platforms against real currencies, bypassing the banking system. Last week, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has warned about the risks of using virtual currencies like bitcoin, which may lead to its users to lose their money without being able to recover it.